Pelican Parts Forums - Wayne needs help for a charity event, and it will cost you nothing, but 2 min of time

As some of you may or may not know, my 1 1/2-year old daughter has Down Syndrome, so the success of charties that help our cause is indeed important to me. American Express has a new charity program that will donate $5 million or more to a selected charity idea - one that receives a majority of votes from American Express card members. This is not a scam or something weird, but a legitimate fund raiser by American Express (see the video below featuring Martin Scorsese and other celebrities).

How can you help? If you have an American Express card, then simply go to the website:

http://www.membersproject.com/intro.htm

and register / login (if you already have access to the American Express site), and then vote for the following project:

Awareness Can Build a Family

Again, this is all very legitimate - there are no scams here, I have checked this out quite thoroughly. Here's the video announcing the program:

<object width="425" height="350"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/-xZ6iBaL16c"></param><param name="wmode" value="transparent"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/-xZ6iBaL16c" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="425" height="350"></embed></object>

and here is more information that I received from the person who told me about this program:

Quote:

Dear DSALA Members and Friends,

If you are an American Express Card holder you can assit the National Down Syndrome Congress, which DSALA is an affilaite of, in sercuring a large donation from American Express. Please read on, and forward this email to your friends and family.

Gail Williamson

Executive Director, Down Syndrome Association of Los Angeles

Dear Friends,

The National Down Syndrome Congress has an exciting opportunity and you can help us secure it to the benefit of all people with Down syndrome and their families.

We have been notified that an NDSC initiative has been named one of 50 finalists as an American Express Members Project. NDSC member Sandra McElwee approached the NDSC about the project; NDSC Board member David Forney wrote the successful entry.

If we succeed in the selection process, we may be awarded up to $5 million to promote Down syndrome awareness.

To get to that, our project must make its way through three rounds of voting by American Express Card Members.

The first round begins today, July 3.

You will find a description of our project below.

If after reading it – and if you are an American Express card member – you can help by going on line to http://www.membersproject.com/intro.htm and following the instruction to vote for the NDSC project titled:

Awareness Can Build a Family

You can help us even more by forwarding this email to all the people on your contact list – to other family members, friends and associates -- one person we know intends to alert her entire church congregation!

Send it to everybody you think might care about people with Down syndrome and ask them to vote for Awareness Can Build a Family.

With your help, we can mobilize thousands of people and, in the end, gain essential funding for our campaign to make the world aware that people with Down syndrome are “more alike than different.”

That is the theme of our campaign and here’s the way it is described with American Express:

Awareness Can Build a Family

Yearly, thousands of women are tested to determine if the child they carry has Down syndrome. A positive answer often portrays a bleak future in which their child will impose terrible burdens and dreams die.

Many medical professionals have scant knowledge of Down syndrome and are unable to comfort or educate.

Their messages tag people with Down syndrome as having no value, implying there is no place for them in our world.

The tragic result: an astonishing 90% of pregnancies involving diagnosis of Down syndrome are terminated.

In fact, there is much to celebrate. Children with Down syndrome excel in school, participating in sports and graduating. As adults they live independent, rewarding lives. Ask a parent – you will hear of joy, fulfillment.

My Members Project, “Awareness Can Build a Family,” would use public service television, ads, booklets and more to tell that people with Down syndrome are more like all of us than not and are of priceless value.

If you agree with all of that, please vote as soon as possible – the first round closes July 15, 2007

For those of you who have told me in the past (many of you), that you would gladly pay to support the BBS, then I call on you to help support this cause. The BBS is fully supported by the commercial parts-sales division of Pelican Parts, but if you have been helped out at all with any information learned on the BBS, or in one of my books, etc., then please take two minutes to help this worthy cause. If you do vote, then please reply here so that we can keep this topic bouncing to the top and get an idea of how many total votes came from Pelicans!

Thanks for your continued support!

-Wayne